


The lines he writes

by ShadowSelene (Shadowdianne)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Swan-Mills Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 13:22:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14045142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowdianne/pseuds/ShadowSelene
Summary: Henry can’t take it anymore and tells his moms they’re obviously in love with each other. Asked by anon via tumblr





	The lines he writes

“You kept saving the other while pretending you weren’t.”

The words made the two woman halt and stare at the teen that was leaning on the doorframe, fingers dark with dots of ink Regina had the impulse to ask him to clean them up before catching herself, knowing the slowly looming over her boy that was eyeing her wasn’t the same boy she had once called “Little Prince”. Looking at Emma briefly as Henry sighed and took a step inside the living room, Regina saw the way the younger woman swallowed, a faint look of panic glowing on the back of her eyes.

Her first impulse was to apologize knowing she had raised her voice at Emma. Something, she admitted to herself just as Henry shot her a look that felt like the perfect combination of something she proudly thought as hers and Emma’s own expression, that had become the norm ever since Emma had called in the middle of the night telling her how she couldn’t keep with the façade any longer.

She had taken off her ring a month after that call.

Now, glancing at her own fingers, Regina shuddered slightly as her magic threatened to erupt in a why that hadn’t happened ever since she had first started to learn the art. Raising her head when Henry cleared his throat, Regina briefly wondered why she felt chastised from her own son.

“I’m…” She begun, voice losing its strength as Emma shook her head at her side, green eyes boring themselves on the teen’s skull.

“Henry.” The words held an edge that Regina frowned at before the teen tilted his head and pointed upstairs, the light of his room casting a slight shimmer on the woodwork of the stairs.

“Every time you fight I need to record it. Did you know that?”

The words were full of tiredness and not for the first time Regina needed to quench her desire to envelope Henry in a hug and told him she would gladly take the title of Author for him. She had known for far too long what entailed to be holding or seeing others hold a title that shouldn’t be weighted like they tended to be. The magic, the destiny or fate that decided for them had been twisted far too many times and so Regina winced slightly at the idea of making her son, their son, be a witness of conversations that shouldn’t be happening in the first place.

Because, she thought while staring at Emma, at the why her throat trembled as the woman swallowed again, at the lines around her eyes, at the way she hold herself -reminiscent of both the woman she was just after appearing on her front door and the one she forced herself to become- and at the way white and gold seemed to just come out of her, her magic just pulsing through her, she thought on why it should matter to her why Emma kept on trying to push everyone away from her. On trying to seclude herself, not caring once or picking up Regina’s offers to help her with her magic, the shadows her new apartment seemed to hold every time someone mentioned that other house, that marriage, that man. That life that wasn’t truly Emma’s anymore.

Why she, she thought as Henry sighed deeply again, needed to raise her voice and argue, why should she care.

“I’m sorry Henry.” She finally answered, small grimace on her face, enough to be a smile, a repent one. “We were just talking and got slightly carried away.”

It was a poor attempt of placating something she didn’t truly know what it was and considering how the boy shot her a warning look Regina realized that it hadn’t truly worked. Fingers itching, she closed her hands into fists as Emma stood, warning gaze on her face.

“I’ve been writing nonstop since mom divorced.” He kept on talking, his voice changing slightly, dropping before steading itself again. Another call of how time was truly passing. “You knew that? Every time I turn I keep on finding the quill in front of me.”

This time he didn’t even let Regina try to talk and so he kept talking, raising both of his arms in sheer frustration.

“Which is stupid because the only thing that keeps this going is you two. The magic! Everything! And everything should be easier if you saw it!”

“Henry.” Regina could feel the tremble on her voice, a warning that she suddenly understood where it had come from for Emma. A tiptoeing truth she had tried her hardest not to think about.

The teen tugged the hem of his t-shirt and rose his shoulders, pointing at the two of them before shaking his head. Everything about him spoke of unspent energy and Regina pressed the tip of her tongue against her front teeth. Wondering if the magic she felt crackling behind her eyes was something Emma was also sensing.

The blonde, however, seemed to be more invested on the words Henry was saying that the power that still seem to come through her.

“No.” Henry replied forcefully, seeming for a moment that same kid that had ventured inside the mines because he wasn’t being heard. “You love her, you both love each other and you keep on pretending you don’t because…”

“Henry, stop.”

Emma’s tone had an edge that made Regina expel whatever air was left on her lungs after she had found herself speechless by Henry’s words. An edge, Regina found herself thinking, that spoke of the blonde’s time as a Dark One, of a moment where everything had felt like starting to crumble, burn into ashes when Emma had walked into Granny’s with nothing but coldness on her eyes.

“But it’s true.”

Regina wanted to believe it was. Wanted to believe that the unwavering trust on love Henry had was something she could share. She, however, knew better. She needed to know better. She had seen Emma marrying Hook after all, hadn’t she? She had seen…

It was Emma’s trembling voice what woke her up from her reverie and, for the first time, she realized that she hadn’t stood up the couch the two of them had been seated at, the two of them glancing from it at their son like two children being scolded.

“I think is time for me to go.”

They could leave it like this, Regina pondered; with Emma leaving and pretend Henry’s words hadn’t existed.

Or they could ask each other.

Running a hand through her hair, feeling the ozone scent of her magic float quickly behind her fingers, she shook her head; a warning Henry’s eyes caught as they widened out in something that could be shock.

“What if it’s true?”

The question floated between the three of them; voice too brittle as it crawled up the walls, hovering between Emma and herself as the blonde’s breath hitched.

“Regina?”

And Regina, shaking but nodding, repeated the question.

“What if it’s true?”


End file.
